Consequences
by MizJoely
Summary: No, really, why did Tegan leave the 5th Doctor? Sarah Jane Smith and company help her figure things out after her return to Earth. 5Tegan
1. Seeking Clarity

**London, England**

Tegan Jovanka was a thoroughly self-sufficient young woman, a licensed small-plane pilot, a stewardess, and world--not to mention galactic and temporal--traveler. She was independent...usually. And fully capable of taking care of herself...normally. The few occasions where she found herself in need of rescuing of one kind or another were exceptions. Minor interruptions of her life. Temporary, quickly gotten over and quickly gotten through.

Until now.

Not that this was any sort of "normal" rescue situation; oh no, not in the least. Not when her very sanity was at stake. And it was at stake, even more so now than when she had been possessed by the Mara. She could almost feel her grasp on reality slipping through her fingers as she babbled some nonsense about not having fun and bolted like a lunatic, running away before the Doctor or Turlough had a chance to say something to make her change her mind. It happened that quickly; everything came to the boiling point at that moment. The only person who could rescue her this time was herself.

But a hasty decision breeds a hasty regret, as Aunty Vanessa used to say. Even though the regret came hard on the heels of the decision, it was a moment--a lifetime--too late. Second thoughts caused her to run back to the TARDIS, just in time to see it disappear out of her life, no doubt for good this time, and with it any chance she had of setting things right.

Tegan stood numbly for a long moment, staring at the empty space in front of her with no idea where to turn. Home, when her mind began functioning again, was her first impulse. But home presented problems of its own; it had been months since she'd actually been on Earth in her own time and place. There were simply too many things she'd have to explain--and too many things she couldn't explain. Not to her parents, who had been upset enough with her for wanting to become an air hostess, and then for committing the unforgivable crime of simply dropping that ambition and flitting off hither and yon and no good explanation for almost three years. Foolish career choice or not, at least air hostessing was a job. Roaming about like a vagabond was not high on their list of ambitions for their only child. They would never understand, never be willing to understand, especially since she couldn't tell them the truth. No, home was definitely out, at least for the time being. Even her grandfather mightn't understand. Maybe she'd be able to go back to them later, when she had things better sorted out...

The problem still remained, however; if not home, then where? It was while she was casting about desperately in her mind for a solution that she remembered Sarah Jane Smith, whom she'd met so briefly, along with the confusing array of past Doctors and other companions at the Tomb of Rassilon. She lived near London, had given Tegan her address and phone number, telling the younger woman to knock her up whenever she decided to "come back to Earth". Did she still have it...yes, there, tucked with the little bit of money she always carried along with her passport and driver's license in the little pocket inside the top of her skirt. She headed towards the building she'd so recently occupied, to find a phone.

**oOo**

Sarah Jane came at once, all indignant sympathy. Left her without so much as a suitcase of souvenirs, had he? Typical. She bundled Tegan into her small car, talking all the while, never seeming to mind or even notice Tegan's silence, never asking what had happened, giving the younger woman time to slowly adjust to the thought of once again living a normal life without the Doctor. Something she'd had to do herself in the not-so-distant past.

It wasn't until they reached the house Sarah Jane shared with her Aunt Lavinia that Tegan felt the numbness in which she'd been encased since watching the TARDIS vanish begin to crack. Sarah Jane hadn't stopped talking the entire trip, her words flowing over Tegan soothingly, giving her the comfort of companionship while at the same time allowing her to let go, howsoever temporarily, of her problems and simply sit, quietly, without thinking.

But by the time the car and Sarah Jane both shut down, at roughly the same moment, the numbness had finally worn off, and all the tension and anger came boiling out. She couldn't stop it, not any of it. Not the tears or the self-recrimination, and certainly not the fear and confusion.

The two women sat in the car for almost half an hour. Sarah saw her Aunt Lavinia peering out between the curtains in the front window once, after a few minutes had passed, but she simply nodded at Sarah's "later" wave and disappeared from view again. Tegan didn't even notice.

Sarah sat very still after Tegan had finally talked herself out, trying to absorb all the implications of what she had been told. "Well," she said finally, "there's no possibility of harboring any illusions about life being uncomplicated when the Doctor's involved, is there?" She smiled wryly. "I'm not going to tell you not to worry, everything will work out, because I've no guarantee it will. But," she added "I'll do whatever I can to help."

"Thank you," Tegan replied with heartfelt gratitude. She seemed to relax a little in the cramped seat of the car. "If you couldn't--well, I honestly don't know where else to go. Home just doesn't seem...possible, right now."

Sarah patted the younger woman's shoulder sympathetically at the note of wistfulness that entered her voice. "Well, if they don't know what you've been up to these past few years, I can certainly see why. But for right now,' she added, "I think my Aunt Lavinia is going to absolutely die of curiosity if we don't go into the house." She smiled at the doubtful look Tegan cast upon the front door. "Don't worry; my aunt is a very understanding woman. Plus she knows all about my traipsing about the universe with the Doctor, so she's safe to tell everything." She opened her door handle and led Tegan into the house.


	2. Heads Together

Lavinia Smith was as sympathetic as Sarah Jane had promised. She, like her niece, insisted that Tegan stay with them "for however long it takes to sort things out."

"You can stay in the guest room across from Sarah Jane," Lavinia continued, in an "I-won't-take-no-for-an-answer" tone of voice. "It's the one where Commander Sullivan pretends to sleep when he stays over," she added drily.

Sarah Jane had the grace to blush before shrugging philosophically. "Harry will be very embarrassed," she warned with more than a hint of laughter. "He thinks you haven't noticed."

Her aunt snorted undelicately. You tell him that I'd be a pretty poor scientist if I couldn't see what was going on right under my nose! Or better yet I'll tell him myself." She nodded decisively, and Tegan found herself liking the elder Miss Smith as much as she did the younger. "All that aside, I think Sarah Jane knows what to do next?" Lavinia suggested.

"Sarah Jane certainly does," Lavinia' s niece replied promptly. She turned her gaze back to Tegan. "I'm going to ring Harry up and invite him over for tea." With those words, she rose from her seat and disappeared into the hall.

Tegan looked at Lavinia with a bemused stare. "She's going to help me by bringing her young man 'round for a nice cuppa?"

Lavinia laughed and gave Tegan's hand a reassuring pat. "Not to worry, dear. Sarah Jane hasn't gone round the bend. Harry Sullivan is a very sensible, level-headed young man. As for the rest," she continued serenely, "he's an MD, a former member of UNIT, and even traveled with your Doctor a time or two." She sipped her tea and nodded at Tegan's surprised face over the rim of her cup, eyes twinkling.

**oOo**

When Harry Sullivan arrived, precisely at 4:55 that afternoon, he was a bundle of nerves--or at least as much a bundle of nerves as someone with his rather placid temperament ever became.

It was all Sarah Jane's fault, of course. She had been extremely mysterious on the phone, saying only that "they" needed him for advice. Who "they" were, or whether the advice needed was medical, military or personal, she wouldn't say. All he could get out of her was that it wasn't an emergency...yet. She had certainly piqued his curiosity. But when he tried to pry more information out of her, she had merely responded by telling him they would be expecting him precisely at 5:00. And then Sarah Jane Smith had very neatly hung up the phone before he could say yes or no. Intriguing, to say the least, and the slightest bit annoying. _As good a description of Sarah Jane as the situation_, he thought sourly.

Of course, he reflected as he waited for Sarah or her aunt to answer the door--he never used his own key when Lavinia was in town--she'd hung up on him on purpose. He could have called her right back, but knowing Sarah Jane, he'd get no answers out of her unless he showed up at 5:00 p.m., as scheduled. And here he was, so her tactics obviously worked. For the thousandth time since they'd met, he asked himself what on earth he was doing, getting involved with someone who had as devious a mind as Sarah Jane Smith. And for the thousandth time, his response to himself was a simple shrug and a confused "I dunno".

Not that they'd been "involved" since the beginning; it hadn't been until the Doctor was out of their lives, seemingly for good, that they'd discovered one another as something more than traveling companions. But then, the Time Lord had that effect on people, keeping their attention centered on him and on whatever disaster he happened to be involved with at any given moment. Not that he did so on purpose; it was just that he was, Harry had long ago decided, far too distracting a personality. Sarah Jane had been, to Harry, a sort of appendage to the Doctor, rather than a separate person. It wasn't until the Time Lord was gone that she--or anyone else–seemed to recall that she had a reality and existence of her own.

He'd never told her this, of course, although he had a sneaking suspicion that Sarah had similar feelings about him. Harry Sullivan had simply been another body in the Doctor's dazzling orbit, and before that, just another faceless uniform behind the Brigadier's only slightly less dazzling presence. It had taken both of them quite a long time to get their eyes to focus back on reality. And on each other.

Harry was still ruminating on these slightly uncomfortable thoughts when Lavinia finally appeared. She greeted him warmly, offering no explanation for her delay in answering, and took his coat before ushering him straight into the parlor. She was so efficient, in fact, that he barely had time to ask after her health before she disappeared into the kitchen. Without answering. Naturally.

Harry settled himself gingerly on the antique chair Lavinia had brought him to before she left. He unconsciously jingled his car keys in one hand as his eyes strayed longingly toward the window behind him. He returned them firmly to the fireplace directly opposite, with a stern reminder to his subconscious that, no matter how oddly everyone was behaving he was not going to bolt through the front door, jump in his car and drive off like a maniac. No matter how temptingly it sat, just in view across the street.

Fortunately for Harry's nerves, only a few minutes passed before Lavinia and Sarah Jane came into the room, although it seemed the proverbial lifetime. With them was a young woman he didn't recognize. Automatically coming to his feet in the presence of the ladies--a habit Sarah Jane had tried and failed to break him of--he looked the stranger over.

He saw a youngish woman, early twenties at most, with short brunette hair framing a pretty face. She was wearing a black leather mini-skirt, a black-red-and-white print blouse, and black heels. She seemed nervous and uneasy, and he concluded that she must be the mysterious "they" Sarah had referred to on the phone. He could see nothing overtly wrong with her, aside from the anxious creases around her eyes and the nervous twitching of her hands as she fidgeted with her skirt.

As the fidgeting increased, Harry realized guiltily he had been staring. "I'm terribly sorry--" he began with some embarrassment, only to be interrupted by Sarah Jane.

"No need to apologize, Harry," she said lightly. "I should have made the introductions right away, but I could see you were wearing your 'professional' look." Harry reddened slightly at this accurate observation, then stepped forward as Sarah continued: "Doctor Harry Sullivan, may I present Miss Tegan Jovanka. We may have met on an alien planet, but she's a home-town--or at least, home-planet--girl, from Brisbane, Australia. She's just got back to Earth recently."

"How'd'you do, Miss Jovanka," Harry murmured as she reached out to shake his hand. He remembered the name now, from Sarah's somewhat breathless and confusing account of her latest encounter with UNIT's former unofficial scientific advisor in the Gallifreyan Death Zone. Before he could do more than that, Sarah Jane invited him to pull up his chair next to the coffee table.

Harry did as directed, while Sarah and Lavinia took the far more comfortable sofa near the fire and Tegan sat in the equally comfortable wing chair opposite them. Lavinia poured, and Sarah engaged her two guests in some minor chit-chat while tea was being taken care of.

Or rather, she engaged Harry in chit-chat. Tegan sat in miserable silence, wishing desperately that she were anywhere else but there. As much as she liked to talk--and she would be the first person to admit how much she liked to talk--she hated talking about herself. But it had to be done; there was no avoiding it, not now. The time to avoid things was already long past, she thought unhappily. She brooded on these things until her attention was returned to the present by someone calling her name.

Tegan shook her head and blinked, looking around for the source of that questioning voice. It was Lavinia; she was staring at her young guest with a look of mild concern. Harry and Sarah Jane were also staring at her, Tegan realized uncomfortably. She shook her head again. "Sorry. Just got lost in thought for a moment." She hunched her shoulders, then straightened her position to one her Aunt Vanessa would have approved of. "You know how it is."

"Not really," Harry murmured, and Tegan knew he was referring to the situation in which he now found himself rather than to her comment. She sympathized; they'd all been acting mysteriously enough. It wasn't fair to keep him in the dark any longer. Not if he was going to help her. Time to come clean.

She looked him squarely in the eye. "I'm the reason Sarah Jane asked you to come over. It's because I'm...pregnant."

Harry's first reaction was merely a raised eyebrow. "A common condition," he said cautiously. Sarah knew what an effort it was for him to maintain such a cool facade. Tegan had already been introduced as "Miss", and Harry could be such a prude--but he wasn't stupid. Once he got past that part of the situation, he'd realize there was no reason to hush up such a "problem" in these modern, enlightened times. Surely it wouldn't take him long to figure out that there was more going on here than met the eye...

Then again, maybe not. "Forgive me, Miss Jovanka," he said stiffly, "but was there a reason you told me this? Do you need a recommendation for an obstetrician?" The glance he darted at Sarah Jane was, as expected, disapproving.

Sarah Jane gave an inward sigh, knowing that the bombshell would have to be dropped without his having the faintest idea it was coming. "Tell him, Tegan," she said, with an encouraging nod and a grimace that said, _He hasn't got it yet_.

The Australian looked down at her tightly clasped hands, then back up at Harry. "Do you know one that might be able to deal with a baby Time Lord?" Her tone was sharper than she had intended. Telling a sympathetic Sarah Jane and Lavinia had been hard enough; this third time through, with a decidedly less sympathetic Harry Sullivan, was much worse.

It took a moment for the implications of her statement to sink in; when they did, Harry's reaction was almost comical. His mouth formed a round "O" of surprise as he half-rose, both hands tightly gripping the arms of his chair as he tried to assimilate what he'd just heard. Sarah Jane found herself stifling a very inappropriate giggle; Harry's reaction would have been absolutely priceless if the situation weren't so serious.

Her old comrade-in-arms spent several stunned moments gaping at them before slowly sinking back into his chair. "How?" he finally asked in a strangled voice. "I mean, he's not human, after all."

Tegan raised an eyebrow of her own, in deliberate mockery of his earlier gesture. "Human enough," she commented dryly, and Harry found himself blushing again.

"I didn't mean--that," he responded as he jumped to his feet. "I just meant--well, _genetically_, not _physically_. That is to say...I mean..."

"We know what you mean, Harry," Sarah rescued him with a laugh she now felt justified in emitting as he turned helplessly to face her. "But it's obviously possible. Now we just need to know if it's safe."

"Safe? Of course it isn't safe!" Harry exploded. He ran agitated fingers through his hair as he began pacing nervously back and forth in front of his seat. "We're talking about a pregnancy that gives new meaning to the term high risk! Safe?" he repeated incredulously. "It's bloody impossible!" He stopped abruptly as Tegan paled at his words.

His face turned beet red as Lavinia commented mildly, "Really, Harry, there's no need to shout."

"Terribly sorry," he apologized, his usual good manners coming to the rescue as he clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at his feet. "Obviously it isn't impossible. But it's an idea that takes a bit of getting used to, you'll have to grant me that much." He turned back to Tegan. "Are you certain? Have you had any symptoms? How long has it been since you menstruated?"

"I think I'm about two months along," Tegan answered after a moment, a bit off-balance by the rapid-fire barrage of professional questions appearing hard on the heels of his initial shocked babbling. "It's kind of hard to tell for sure because traveling on the TARDIS tends to put me off. And I've only had a few symptoms--a little morning sickness, some tiredness, and a peckish sort of appetite. Enough for me to know."

"Are you certain there's been nothing else? No--" he hesitated as if searching for the right word, then made a face and continued, "--problems?"

Tegan shook her head. "Nothing. I've been fine otherwise." _Liar!_ her conscience screamed, but she ignored it with the ease of long habit, telling it firmly that her emotional problems--not that she actually had any--were private property. That it wasn't what Harry was asking about.

"I'll need to perform a complete physical," Harry was saying, steadied now, back in the role of Doctor Sullivan, "We ought to take you to UNIT--"

"No!" Tegan and Sarah Jane both exclaimed at the same time. _All opposed_, Lavinia found herself thinking as the other two women traded glances.

It was Sarah Jane who continued: "Not if we can avoid it, Harry. Remember, the Brig's not in charge anymore. All we need is for the government to get wind of the fact that the baby's father is an alien. They'll treat her like a lab rat--don't try to deny it!--and when the baby's born, it'll be even worse. For both of them!"

"You've been watching too many science fiction movies," Harry protested, but weakly. Sarah might be exaggerating, but she was essentially correct. He sighed, holding up one hand as Sarah opened her mouth to protest. "I'm not going to argue with you. You're right." Sarah closed her mouth and looked extremely satisfied.

"As usual," Harry added devilishly, and watched as the satisfaction turned to indignation. He ignored her, however, turning instead to Tegan as he continued: "For now, I'll go along with you. No UNIT. And no hospital. I have a friend with a private clinic who owes me about nine lifetime's worth of favors. He knows how to keep a secret. They know what an odd lot UNIT is, so I don't think he'll ask too many questions, or be too surprised by anything that happens. And of course, there's K-9 to help out."

Tegan had already been introduced to Sarah Jane's unusual electronic "pet" and had no doubts about his ability to render any assistance necessary. "But--" Harry held up a warning finger, "--if I feel there's any danger to either you or the baby, it's off to UNIT and we'll just have to take the consequences. Agreed?" He waited for Tegan to nod before sitting back down.

"Thank you," Tegan replied gratefully. She felt almost overwhelmed by the willingness of these people to help a near-stranger. "I couldn't ask for anything more. I can't ask my family for help, I told Sarah Jane that--"

"But you will keep in touch with them," Sarah interrupted soberly. "Letters, at the very least. You don't have to tell them about your--er, delicate condition, but you don't want a missing persons to go out on you, either. All right?"

Tegan nodded her agreement. "It's what I've been doing all along," she replied with a small shrug that tried to be indifferent, but couldn't quite mask the bitterness in her voice. "They think I'm balmy for turning into such a gypsy. Anyway, if that's what you call a condition, I'm not about to argue! You hardly even know me, and you're going to all this trouble. I don't know what to say."

"I don't need to know you," Harry interrupted, shifting uncomfortably on his seat as Lavinia picked up the tea tray and tactfully disappeared into the kitchen. "I know the Doctor, and that's enough." He glanced at Sarah. "Lord knows he's gotten us into--and out of, I'll admit it!--enough scrapes. Without him, I'd probably never have met Sarah Jane, for example." He smiled, still with a hint of the devil.

"And is that an 'into' or an 'out of'?" Sarah inquired sweetly. "No, don't answer that; I don't want to know!" she continued at Harry's discomfited look. She turned her attention back to Tegan. "Look, Harry is the best. You're in good hands. Trust me."

"Let me ring up my friend," the object of this unstinting praise said hastily as he rose from his chair and headed for the front hail. "The sooner we get this going, the better."

Sarah's gaze followed him fondly as Tegan commented, "Not one for the spotlight, is he?" She rose from her seat as well and paced restlessly around the room, ending up at the window. "Is he as good as you say?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder while her fingers toyed nervously with the curtain.

Sarah smiled wryly. "In my 'unbiased' opinion?" She met Tegan's gaze frankly, no teasing now. "When it comes to this sort of thing, he's the best." She opted to keep the Doctor's opinion about Harry to herself. There was something about traveling through space and time; it either brought out a person's best side...or their worst. And she knew exactly what the Doctor would say about Harry Sullivan. But that was in the past, just like her own time on the TARDIS.

Tegan turned to gaze out the window, focusing unknowingly on Harry's car. "I hope so," she replied softly, almost to herself. "I've a feeling I'm going to need all the help I can get."

Sarah nodded silent agreement before rising from her chair and joining Lavinia in the kitchen, leaving Tegan to her thoughts. And her memories.

It had all started after Adric died...


	3. Time Heals

**oooOooo**

Adric was dead. The survivors from the freighter had been returned to their proper time and place, back home on Earth, the TARDIS for once going obediently where she was directed, almost as if the time machine, too, was subdued by the boy's death. Everyone had offered Tegan and Nyssa their condolences; the Doctor, as Commander Briggs put it, seemed "too far away" for them to approach with their sympathies.

When the last person had filed off the TARDIS, when the last good-bye was said, the Doctor had silently set the coordinates, announced his intention to "meditate", and promptly exited the console room. His cool manner and emotionless mien had somewhat surprised his two remaining companions, but not truly startled them. "We've all been off our feed lately," was Tegan's only comment as she placed a comforting arm around Nyssa's shoulders and ushered the younger woman to the room they currently shared.

**oOo**

"Will you be all right?" Two weeks had passed. Tegan and Nyssa were getting ready for bed. Tegan knew the young Trakenite hadn't been sleeping well, and neither had she, truth be told. Guilt, grief and anger had kept her from being able to talk to her friend--or the Doctor--for far too long, but she was feeling better able to deal with things now that she'd had her cry out. And from the looks of things, Nyssa was, too. She was nodding in answer to Tegan's question, smiling even, something neither of them had been able to manage even a few days ago. Tegan felt her spirits lift even more at this sign of recovery.

The TARDIS had begun to look like a ghost ship, what with Nyssa spending all her time holed up in the labs and the Doctor off doing who-knew-what in the bowels of the ship. Not to mention Tegan herself avoiding the others by hiding in her room, she reluctantly admitted, like a frightened child. But it had been what she needed; time spent alone, to bring some sort of order to her chaotic emotions. It had taken every ounce of her admittedly small store of self-control to keep from screaming accusations at the Doctor, to keep from hitting him or throwing things at him in a childish temper tantrum that might have relieved her initial feelings, but would have done more harm than good in the long run. So hiding, being off by herself, had been the best thing she could have done.

Whether or not that was true for herself, it seemed to have helped Nyssa; although she would hold her grief for Adric's death in her heart forever--along with her grief for the loss of father and home world--she would be able to get on with her life. That was the sort of person she was, and Tegan admired her for it while at the same time feeling a touch of envy; she'd never be able to put it aside so completely as she knew Nyssa would. "I still can't believe he's gone," Nyssa murmured, as if reading Tegan's mind.

Tegan lowered her eyes. "Me too. I guess it'll just.. .take time." It was an inane thing to say, but she honestly couldn't think of anything else.

Nyssa simply nodded. She started to enter the room they shared, holding the door for Tegan to follow, but her room-mate took a step back, shaking her head. "Not yet. I'm not tired."

"Tegan, you need your rest." Nyssa's voice filled with concern, and Tegan mustered up a bright smile.

"No, it's all right, honestly. I promise I'm not going off to sulk. I just don't feel tired, not yet. Maybe if I get something to eat I'll feel better. See you later?"

Nyssa nodded reluctantly. "Later, then. Good-night, Tegan."

"Good night." Tegan stood for a moment outside the door. She'd had her cry out, and Nyssa'd had hers, too. That left only one person who was still bottling things up. The Doctor. Tegan glanced down the corridor toward the nearest kitchen, then in the opposite direction, nodding firmly as she made up her mind. Squaring her shoulders, she marched determinedly toward the Doctor's suite of rooms.

But, as she turned down the hall that actually led to his private quarters, Tegan found herself slowing. A kind of reluctance possessed her; after all, what if the Doctor didn't want comforting? He wasn't human, she reminded herself as she came to an indecisive stop not ten feet from his door, no matter how much he looked it. Suppose Time Lords always handled grief by pulling into themselves emotionally, like frightened turtles retreating into their shells at the slightest hint of danger?

She snorted and shook her head at the image that thought presented. No. Every instinct she possessed told her that this was worst possible way he could react, the worst thing he could do. Nodding firmly to herself, certain that she was justified in her actions, Tegan marched the final steps to the Doctor's door and raised a hand to knock.


	4. An Expert at Confrontation

The door opened before the blow landed, and the young air hostess jumped back a step in surprise. The Doctor stood silently in the doorway, studying Tegan expressionlessly. Then he opened the door wider, stepped to the side and motioned her in with a sweeping gesture. "I wondered when you'd show up," was his only comment as she entered the main room of the suite.

She looked back at him uncertainly as he closed the door behind her, wondering if he had suddenly gained supernatural powers. This suspicion was strengthened by the sight of a tea service perched on the edge of the small table sitting in the middle of the room. It was set for two. "Have you taken up witchcraft, then?" Tegan asked, uneasiness edging the flippant remark.

The Doctor's answering chuckle sounded forced to her ears. "No. Just the study of--well, call it human nature. Travel with someone long enough, you get to know them fairly well." He offered Tegan a chair, which she warily accepted.

She waited for him to take his own seat and commenced pouring before she spoke. "I suppose that works both ways."

The Doctor hesitated fractionally before replying. "Why yes, I suppose it does." There was another small silence. Before Tegan could break it, the Doctor did. "Is Nyssa sleeping any better?" He handed Tegan one of the tea cups.

The unexpected question threw Tegan momentarily off-balance. She had planned on being the one to take the initiative. "Not really," she admitted, automatically accepting the proffered cup. "Well, maybe a little better," she added after a moment's reconsideration. "But do you honestly expect her to? I'm not exactly a hundred percent myself, y'know. These things take time." That phrase again; she silently scolded herself for repeating it to the one man in the universe who probably knew the truth of it better than anyone.

The Doctor nodded, either ignoring or not noticing the defensive belligerence that had inadvertently crept into Tegan' s voice. "Yes. Everything does. Take time, that is." He lifted his cup to his lips.

"But not for you?" Tegan found herself baiting him, her voice innocent. "Not for a Time Lord?" She sipped her own tea demurely, watching from beneath her lashes for his reaction.

His cup clattered on its saucer. _Bingo!_ she thought triumphantly. _Score one for the earthling._ But the Doctor's face remained impassive as he asked, "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

Tegan recognized the warning signs, but wasn't about to budge. He'd obliged her by opening up the subject when he asked about Nyssa; he wasn't about to drive her off with one of his Gallifreyan temper-tantrums. Not this time. She'd come here for a reason, and she'd be damned if she left without accomplishing something. She could be just as stubborn as he was. Where Nyssa would probably have executed a strategic withdrawal, Tegan relied on that stubbornness to carry her through. "It means that I think you've been pretending to take this far too well." _Well that should do it,_ she thought, mentally bracing herself. _Once more into the breach..._

"Pretending," the Doctor repeated meditatively. "And I suppose 'this' refers to Adric's death?" His carefully controlled voice gave nothing away; he could have been discussing nothing more important than the weather.

Tegan nodded, managing to appear far calmer than she actually felt. Her heart was hammering in her chest at the audacity of what she was attempting. _It's for his own good, _she reminded herself. "Brooding is unhealthy," she answered virtuously. "And so is repression."

"Oh really? And where did you learn that?" the Doctor asked with a sneer, the emotionless mask finally cracking a little. "In a stewardess-school seminar in passenger psychology?"

"Struck a nerve, have I?" Tegan retorted, stung into sarcasm by the bitter harshness of his remark in spite of her intentions to the contrary.

The Doctor rose and paced back and forth behind his abandoned chair. His nerves were on edge; he'd never have done so otherwise. Tegan could see the tension in the tight set of his shoulders and the lines of strain around his eyes.

"What do you want from me?" he finally asked as he came to a stop with his back to her and raised one hand to rub his eyes wearily. "To parade my emotions before the universe like a circus?" Tegan winced at the bitterness in his voice, but tried not to let her own feelings gain the upper hand again. The only thing she'd accomplish that way, as she knew from past experience, was a shouting match. So she shrugged again instead.

"I think," she said deliberately, "that you're as upset and angry at Adric's death as Nyssa and I are. And I think you're blaming yourself."

"I see. That is what you think," was the sardonic response.

"Yes, it is," Tegan replied evenly, rising from her seat. The small corner of her mind that wasn't wrapped up in this budding argument was amazed at her own calm; she was actually feeling it now, instead of just pretending to. "I think you're blaming yourself, and I understand why--" here was the difficult part "--because I was doing it too, for a while." Tegan saw him wince at that blunt admission, but continued ruthlessly: "I'm still angry that it happened, I still don't think it's fair, but I finally got over blaming you. But I don't think you have, not yet. Do you deny it?"

The Doctor stood quite still for nearly a minute--Tegan counted--while her question hung challengingly in the air between them. Then, abruptly, his shoulders sagged. "No," came the surprising reply, in a voice so low Tegan had to strain to hear it. "I don't."

She was thrown off balance once again, this time by the suddenness of the Doctor's capitulation. She'd expected a much longer struggle--including the shouting match she'd been trying to avoid--before she got any sort of a confession out of him. It was as if he wanted to be convinced. She edged around the table to stand directly behind him, uncertain now of her next move; she hadn't gotten this far in the sketchy planning she'd thrown together on her way over. All her antagonism, her own anger and guilt, had completely dissolved at his quiet admission.

"You know there's nothing you could've done," Tegan said after another long moment. She cleared her throat, slightly ill-at-ease now in the role of comforting the Doctor; she was far more used to it being the other way round. "There was nothing any of us could've done. You know it." She repeated the very words she'd told herself a thousand times over the past few weeks, and hoped that he was more convinced by them than she had been.

A silent nod was the only response Tegan received. She bit her lip, then raised a hesitant hand to touch his shoulder. "If you want to--to talk, or anything, you know I'm here," she whispered.

The Doctor turned to face her then, and she was surprised to see tears filling his eyes. She'd never seen him cry before. As their eyes met, Tegan realized with a start that she, too, was crying. And then, she was never sure afterwards how it happened, but they were in each others arms. When their lips met, she realized that perhaps this had been her intention--and his need--all along.


	5. Intervention

**South Croydon**

Life, Tegan reflected philosophically as she wiped yet another plate and stacked it with the rest on the sideboard, handed one the most shocking sorts of surprises at the most inconvenient of times. There were so many things a person simply couldn't predict or prepare for. Consequences, she admitted to herself unhappily, had never been her strong point. Impulsiveness had gotten her into trouble far too many times before, and this time was no different.

Well, perhaps a little different. "Trouble" before had always meant short-term consequences only. Easily forgotten. Maybe that was part of the problem; perhaps if she'd had more severe consequences--not potential consequences, but actual ones--she'd have been more careful. But she'd never had to face any consequences of her own actions that had been long-term or ongoing.

But now, here was something with long-term consequences--very long-term--to feel guilty about. She'd been frightened and angry and confused, and had made an impulsive decision she'd regretted two minutes after it was made--two minutes too late. Tegan stared unseeingly out of the kitchen window, patting her swollen stomach in distracted apology--for depriving the child of its father, perhaps, or for any of half a hundred other reasons--lost in her thoughts.

"Falling asleep on the job?"

Tegan came back to herself with a start at the sound of Lavinia's voice behind her. She blinked, then turned her gaze to the older woman apologetically. "Sorry! Just wool-gathering, I guess."

"Talking to the baby?" Lavinia asked casually.

During the second trimester, a tentative, extremely random sort of telepathy had developed between the young mother and the fetus. Nothing so concrete as actual conversation, of course, more like an empathic bond of the "feel good/don't feel good" variety. Tegan was entranced, once she became used to the slightly unsettling idea. Sarah was thrilled, Lavinia intrigued, and Harry absolutely fascinated--both personally and professionally. It had put a completely unexpected twist on what so far had been a mostly mundane pregnancy.

The only other worry had been picked up early on the sonogram: A double heartbeat. Tegan was positively terrified at the thought of twins, but her fears had hardly been calmed by the ultrasound revelation that the baby, a girl, had inherited her father's double circulatory system. The fact that she seemed to be developing just fine eased her mother's mind somewhat, but never far from Tegan's troubled thoughts was the fact that her baby's father was, indeed, an alien. All in all, Harry and K-9 might be quite pleased with the way everything was working out, but the young mother-to-be found herself growing more and more anxious as the pregnancy advanced.

She'd done her best to cover those anxieties, displaying her trademark brash confidence, but both Lavinia and Sarah Jane could tell she was worried. Just as they knew there was something else, something besides her concerns about the pregnancy that was preying on her mind. Lavinia had decided it was time to do something about the situation.

"Not today," Tegan was saying in reply to the question she'd just been asked. "Just--remembering."

"Pleasant memories, I hope, rather than bad ones?"

"Little of both," Tegan admitted, concentrating on finishing the last few dishes in the sink. "I was thinking about when I first came here."

"And why you came, perhaps? Do sit down, my dear," Lavinia urged, not bothering to wait for an immediate answer. "I think we're long overdue for a chat."

Tegan stubbornly remained standing by the sink. "What shall we chat about?" she said brightly. "We could gossip about Harry and Sarah Jane." They had gone sailing for the day on Harry's boat . It was mid-August, and Tegan envied them their escape from the heat.

"We could," Lavinia agreed. "Or we could talk about something you've managed very neatly to avoid for the past six months. Such as, how do you feel?"

"Never better," Tegan responded, deliberately misunderstanding. "Doctor Harry says I'm in tip-top shape." She kept her back to Lavinia as she picked up and wiped another plate. Avoiding her all-too-knowing eyes. Lavinia had always reminded Tegan of her Aunty Vanessa, at least physically, but Sarah Jane's aunt was a great deal sharper than Tegan's had ever been.

"Emotionally, my dear," Lavinia responded drily. "I am far more concerned with your mental health right at the moment than with your physical. It's a pity Harry doesn't have any psychiatrist friends who are discreet and owe him large favors," she added reflectively as she walked over and peered into Tegan's face.

Tegan sighed in what sounded suspiciously like exasperation, then stared down at the sink. "Why does everybody want to get into my bloody head?" she muttered petulantly, pulling her face away before biting her lip in vexation at her over-reaction. Lavinia was only trying to help, and she wasn't being very graceful, but the fact of the matter was that she loathed discussing her feelings. She looked back at her hostess. "Look, can we save it for later? I'm really not up to talking about.. .things right now. Maybe once the baby's here..."

Lavinia frowned. When she'd decided to approach Tegan, she knew it wouldn't be easy, but this was turning out to be even more difficult than she'd imagined. It was obvious to her that Tegan needed to get things off her chest, but it was equally obvious that the Australian mother-to-be wasn't going to talk right now. Lavinia had always considered Sarah Jane stubborn and willful, but Tegan could out-stubborn her niece any day. Still, something needed to be done; it was plain to all concerned that Tegan needed to acknowledge whatever emotional wounds her leaving the Doctor had caused.

With that thought firmly in mind, Lavinia plowed ahead with her next question. "Tegan, can you tell me one thing?" The younger woman shrugged. "Do you love him? You've never once mentioned the word, you know," she prodded after a moment of dead silence. "On either part."

"It never came up," Tegan said flatly, and Lavinia knew with a feeling of defeat that she wasn't going to receive any more of an answer than that. A physical relationship didn't always mean an emotional one, but it seemed obvious to her--and to Harry and Sarah Jane, for that matter--how the poor girl felt. Even if it wasn't obvious to Tegan herself. Then there was the question of how the Doctor had felt about the relationship, but Lavinia wasn't about to try and tackle that subject.

So she merely nodded and walked toward the door to the parlor. "Tegan if you decide you want to talk, my door, as the saying goes, is always open."

Tegan murmured a noncommittal answer as she picked up another plate. Lavinia waited a moment longer, then left the kitchen in defeat. Nothing she could do or say would make Tegan talk about her problems. Not now, anyway.

In fact, Lavinia mused as she walked to the front window, no one in the household was really qualified to help Tegan deal with the situation--at least, not the part that fell under the heading of "unfinished business". The only person who might be able to rectify the situation, she realized as she came to a stop in the middle of the parlor, was the one person no one had thought to consult: The Doctor.

It seemed perfectly obvious to her now; the Doctor's presence was more than called for. He didn't even know he was on the verge of becoming a father, which was hardly fair to either him or the baby. Tegan seemed to be under the impression that she would never see him again, and not entirely by choice. "I left him," she'd explained when she first arrived. "And now it's too late to let him know." So she did want him to, which Lavinia was perfectly willing to facilitate. It was high time, she decided, as she headed for her lab in the back of the house, that she consulted K-9 in something other than a medical capacity. After all, hadn't the Doctor contacted Sarah Jane the one time through the cybernetic dog? If he could reach them, surely they could reach him. It was just a pity they hadn't thought to do so before now. K-9 was wonderful, but he wasn't exactly an independent thinker, and no one had ever thought to ask him his opinion on the matter.

And if they couldn't--well, there were always the UNIT psychiatric specialists Harry had quietly mentioned to Lavinia and Sarah Jane a few weeks ago. The same deal for them, he'd said, as for the regular medics. If Tegan couldn't handle things mentally, if they couldn't help her themselves, then it would be time for the professionals to step in. He'd been very firm on that subject; it was the first argument he'd ever won against Sarah Jane, as far as Lavinia could remember. And Sarah Jane had given in, if not gracefully, then at least with grudging acknowledgment that Harry was right. It was an historic occasion, to say the least.

Lavinia nodded firmly, the decision reached. "No time like the present," she murmured.


	6. Internal Struggle

**oOo**

Tegan tossed restlessly on her bed. She couldn't stop thinking about the question Sarah's aunt had asked her. It echoed in her mind, as unanswered now as it had been earlier in the day. As unanswered as it had been since the beginning of her relationship with the Doctor.

Did she love him? Tegan shook her head, trying to dispel the thought, then sighed and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She went over to stare moodily out of the window. "Lavinia's right; neither one of us ever mentioned the bloody word," she muttered to herself. She felt a twinge of regret at the way she'd rebuffed Lavinia's offer of help, but squashed it mercilessly. Lavinia, Sarah and Harry had done so much for her that she hated to turn them away--any of them--but this was something she just didn't want to deal with. Not now, not when she was still struggling with the fact that she was about to become a mother.

But she couldn't avoid the questions Lavinia had raised forever. One day she would have to face them. She pulled her glance away from the silent moonlight as her mind reached that conclusion. _But not tonight,_ she told herself firmly._ Thinking about it now will do nothing except make me lose sleep._ Time enough to think about it during the day. Sternly ordering her subconscious to give it a rest, she walked awkwardly back to the bed and laid back down.

Tegan had never told Lavinia--or Harry or Sarah Jane, for that matter--about the nightmares she'd been prone to since her older brother's death when she was ten. And she especially hadn't told them about the ones that had plagued her during her time on the TARDIS after her second, soul-twisting encounter with the Mara. Nor had she told them that it was those nightmares that had been directly responsible for her return to the comfort of the Doctor's bed.

They'd only been together the one time before that, and it frightened her, the unexpected physical intimacy that developed so quickly between them. She'd left in the night, slipping back to the room she shared with Nyssa, elated and troubled all at the same time, unsure what this change meant, unsure about anything. By morning she'd convinced herself it had been a one-time thing, never to be repeated, and acted accordingly. "Maybe that's why he left you," she muttered to herself, flipping awkwardly onto her side, readjusting the mound of pillows that made sleeping a little easier. When her mind was cooperating, of course.

He'd left her at Heathrow, she'd come back not too long after, but their relationship had lapsed back to the way it had been before Adric's death; the noisy companion, the superior alien, with an occasionally bewildered Nyssa stuck in the middle.

It all changed after they encountered the Mara on Manussa. When they'd finally left the wretched planet, the Mara destroyed, her mind once more her own, she'd convinced herself that the snake-creature could never invade her thoughts again.

As with so many other things in her life, she was wrong. The third night in a row that she woke up in a cold sweat, heart pounding and cheeks damp with tears from some thankfully unremembered terror, she left her room at a stumbling run, heading blindly for the Doctor's suite. Without hesitating, without even thinking about what she was doing, she pushed his unlocked door open...

...and fell into his waiting arms. He was standing in the dark, just past the door. Hearing the noise she made in the hall? Telepathy? Tegan never asked how he came to be there. She simply clung to him for a moment, still shaking from the horror of the nightmare and the events that caused it, then sought his lips with hers, pressing her body against his, desperately afraid he would push her away.

He hadn't, not that night or any of the others that followed. Gradually the dreams stopped coming on a regular basis, although they never completely disappeared. It helped, when she felt her sanity slipping away, to have someone to hold, but she never admitted to herself that it wasn't solely for comfort that she went to him at night. In fact, she carefully kept herself from thinking about her actions or the reasons for those actions at all. A pattern emerged; during the day, neither of them so much as acknowledged their nighttime activities. Once again, they never talked.

The tension grew almost unbearable for Tegan, and, she thought, for the Doctor as well. In fact, everyone became snappish and irritable. Nyssa certainly couldn't help but notice that something was wrong, and it must have frustrated her no end that neither the Doctor nor Tegan would admit it. She knew Tegan had nightmares, that she left their shared room sometimes in the middle of the night, but not where her friend went.

Tegan believed, then and now, that it was part of the reason she decided to stay on Terminus. Nyssa was by nature a loving, giving person, and those qualities were blocked at every turn on the TARDIS. She was hemmed in by emotional walls on every side, not only by the Doctor and Tegan, but also by Turlough, once he joined the crew. No one would tell her what was wrong, and no one would let her help.

Terminus must have been a godsend to the young Trakenite. Her family, her world and her friend Adric were beyond help, and her adopted family on the TARDIS was apparently unwilling to so much as acknowledge that they needed help. So Tegan couldn't really blame her for staying where she was not only needed, but where her help was actively sought.

And then, of course, there was the inescapable fact that Nyssa's leaving--and the new set of nightmares spawned by that event--had given Tegan yet another convenient excuse to continue seeking comfort in the Doctor's arms, and to avoid thinking or talking about what her real motives for being there were.

None of those nightmares even came close to the one that destroyed her sleep the night of her talk with Lavinia Smith.

_Terror. She could feel it, her heart pounding, sweat covering her body. Primal, unthinking panic flooded her being as she raced down the seemingly endless corridors of the TARDIS. Every door she tried was locked. She ran from one to the next, finding the same thing each time: No entry, and some unknown, unseen _thing_ coming after her._

_Another corridor. She careened around the corner, bouncing off the wall in her haste. A single door at the end. _His_ door. And whatever was behind her, closing in. She hesitated, then reached for the handle._

_It opened. Relief flooded her, but only for a moment. As she slammed the door shut behind her and spun around with the terrible slow-motion speed common to nightmares, she found herself facing the Doctor._

_Safety! She stumbled toward him, arms outstretched. But he turned from her, a look of revulsion coming over his face. What was it? He ignored her pleading eyes, her panicked expression as he shoved her away from him._

_Straight into a mirror._

_Her reflection, although blurry and distorted, clearly showed her stomach, distended as it was now in reality but had never been on the TARDIS, in the final months of pregnancy. A feeling of impending doom came over her, her heart beating so fast she felt sure it would burst through her chest. Somewhere in the background, Turlough was laughing, cackling with maniacal glee. And the feeling of terror grew with every breath._

_She stood there, frozen for a timeless eternity, staring at her reflection until suddenly, without warning, the mirror shattered into a thousand glittering pieces, all bearing her image, all collapsing toward her in a slow-motion promise of razor-sharp death. None of the pieces touched her as she cowered away, throwing her arms up over her head in an instinctive protective gesture, but her relief was short-lived. Sharp, agonizing contractions ripped through her abdomen. Tegan fell to the floor along with the shards, collapsing as soundlessly as they, although she felt herself trying futilely to scream._

_Labor pains turned abruptly to a powerful urge to push, but Tegan knew instantly that there was something terribly wrong. Her fears were fully and horribly realized as a snake's head, bloody and wet as the newborn infant it was simulating, appeared between her legs. She watched in frozen horror as the obscene dream-Mara slithered from her body, while sound abruptly returned. Turlough's laughter continued to ring mockingly in the background, only to merge into the deafening double-thump of someone's heavily amplified heartbeat. She saw the Doctor moving further and further into the darkness, doing nothing to help her, although she called out for him, screamed his name, begged him to come back, not to leave her..._

"Tegan!" She heard her name as if from a great distance. "Tegan! Wake up! For heaven's sake, wake up!"

Tegan's eyes flew open and she blinked painfully in the glare of the unexpected light. She was sitting up rigidly in bed, the blankets twisted around her legs, her entire body shaking from the terror of the nightmare, her throat raw from screaming. Sarah Jane was gripping her shoulders, a worried look on her face. Lavinia stood by the door, looking equally concerned. It was Sarah's voice she'd heard, Tegan realized dimly as awareness slowly returned. She gave one last, convulsive shudder, then burst into uncontrollable sobs and collapsed against her friend.

Sarah rocked her soothingly as Lavinia murmured something about tea. Sarah merely nodded as she continued to hold the younger woman, whispering calming noises into her ear as her aunt disappeared back downstairs.

After a few minutes, Tegan stiffened suddenly, then pushed away to stare down incredulously at her stomach before looking back up at the other woman. "Oh Sarah," she whispered, her eyes filled with horror, "I think the baby's coming!"

Six hours later--and almost two months early--Elaina Jovanka made her debut.


	7. House Call

**Four Months Later**

The quiet residential neighborhood had that timeless, eternal-Sunday-afternoon feel that even a stranger would recognize as integral to its nature. Nothing out of the ordinary here, the dignified houses seemed to say. No strange doings, no unusual or unexplained events. Just everlasting peace and quiet.

Which just goes to show how wrong such a front can be.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. It had discreetly chosen to materialize behind an ancient oak that stood in the far corner of the largest lot at the end of the street. The house was on the other side of the property, half-hidden by a line of bushes and other, smaller trees. It was a very pleasant bit of acreage, he decided as he looked around, but there was one problem.

It wasn't where he'd meant to land. As usual.

He shrugged and walked toward the road. Stopping when he got to the corner, he looked up at the street names and grunted approvingly. Well, even if he hadn't quite managed Hillview Road, at least he was fairly close. He should count his blessings that he'd landed in South Croydon at all; Sarah had already given him what-for about missing it the one time. He'd never hear the end of it if he'd landed himself in the wrong place, same as he'd done to her. Make one little mistake...

A smile flickered across his face in spite of himself. Sarah would no doubt complain about the fact that it took him so long to come and visit, but she'd be just as pleased to see him as he would be to see her; the little "reunion" arranged by Borusa had been far from what one would call an enjoyable visit. Lavinia's invitation had been a complete surprise, but a pleasant one. He was ready and more than ready for a nice, quiet visit with old friends.

The smile faded. Turlough's leave-taking had been abrupt and somewhat confusing, but at least the boy had finally been able to go home, where he belonged. And the call had helped him reach a decision about Peri as well; he'd dropped her back on Earth--not without protest--before coming here. He just wasn't up to mucking about the cosmos with anyone right now, especially a perky, inquisitive American whose chest size seemed to outmatch her IQ at times. Not with Turlough just gone and Kameleon still on his conscience; especially not after having lost Tegan for no good reason...

The frown deepened, then disappeared as the Doctor determinedly turned his thoughts away from his former companions. What was done, was done, he told himself. Tegan no longer wanted him in her life; fine. He had absolutely no intention of going near Brisbane, Australia. He would visit Sarah and K-9 and Lavinia, and perhaps Harry and the Brigadier and some of his old cronies from UNIT, and then he would take off once again, the better for having had a bit of a rest. It would be a pleasant change from the usual chaos his life consisted of these days, he decided, and began strolling toward Hillview Road.

**oOo**

The house looked exactly as he remembered it, the Doctor noted silently, then stepped up to the front door and pressed the buzzer.

Lavinia peered through the curtains on the window, frowning at the sight of a stranger on her doorstep. A salesman? she wondered briefly, then dismissed the thought. Definitely not a salesman. Not dressed like that. Perhaps a friend of Harry or Sarah Jane...

Only one way to find out. She opened the door. "May I help you?"

The stranger smiled when he saw her, lifted the hat from his head in a courtly gesture, and jammed it into his pocket. "Sorry I'm late, Miss Smith," he apologized. "I only just downloaded your message from the telepathic circuitry. K-9 couldn't get a direct line in, and I'm afraid I've been rather busy."

"Doctor! How marvelous!" Lavinia exclaimed, opening the door wider. "Do come in. And please, call me Lavinia, we know each other well enough for that. And for heaven's sakes, don't apologize! I'd rather expected not to see you at all. You're always busy," she laughed as he followed her into the parlor.

"Even a Time Lord needs a break every now and again," he replied as he glanced approvingly around the room. The inside of the house was exactly as he remembered it, . Comforting, that. Change wasn't always good, as he'd discovered recently. He returned his attention to Lavinia. "Actually, it's rather nice, coming to Earth without any emergencies waiting for me."

Did he imagine it, or did a look of guilt flash across Lavinia's face at those words? She was cheerful enough now, taking his coat and chattering to him about her latest project as she walked him into the kitchen. _I'm definitely getting too paranoid_, the Doctor decided as he sat down at the table and watched her preparing tea. _Now I'm seeing plots behind Lavinia's eyes!_ He shook his head in wry amusement.

"Sarah Jane's away at the moment," Lavinia explained as she finally joined him at the table. "Your timing is actually rather good, though; she's due back later this afternoon. She'll be thrilled to see you; I haven't told her I called. K-9 and I managed to muddle through ourselves. I thought it better that way; in case you couldn't make it after all," she explained. "No disappointment. And a lovely surprise if you did! Which you have." She stopped abruptly and peered up at him with a small smile. "My goodness, I'm babbling, aren't I."

The Doctor smiled back at her. "Not at all." He glanced around the kitchen, sipping his tea appreciatively. "Has K-9 been behaving himself?"

Lavinia smiled oddly, as if there were something extremely amusing about that question. "Oh yes," she replied. "He's been very helpful."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, both at her response and at her tone. Something was up; he could tell. A flash of his earlier uneasiness appeared, but he suppressed it. Lavinia didn't seem alarmed or worried about anything. Whatever was up, he had no doubts that she would tell him. He only had to be patient.

That didn't mean, however, that he couldn't speculate on the matter. Perhaps there was something about Sarah Jane that her aunt wasn't telling him. Or--he smiled slightly. He wouldn't put it past Lavinia to have some sort of party or something planned for his return. She'd probably excuse herself in order to use the phone, and later that evening or the next day he would be inundated with old friends. That was the sort of thing she'd do.

Lavinia studied the Doctor covertly while she continued to chatter about the line of research she was currently pursuing. He looked tired, she thought as she kept a weather eye out on the kitchen door. Tegan was due back any minute now from her afternoon walk with Lanie, and Lavinia had every intention of making a hasty getaway as soon as the two of them were safely inside the door. She was glad he hadn't regenerated again. Now that she had a chance to examine him at her leisure, she could tell that this was the Doctor both Tegan and Sarah Jane had described to her as "the most recent one." Blonde hair and cricket whites, a Panama hat, and the puzzling but charming stick of celery on his jacket lapel. An unusual boutonniere, but then, he was an unusual man.

A man who was about to be hit with a rather large shock. Lavinia glanced over at the door once more, to see the handle turning. She rose hastily to her feet, smiling down at the Doctor. "I'm terribly sorry," she apologized as the door began to open, "but I neglected to tell you that we have a houseguest."

The door opened further, and the front of a pram nudged into the kitchen. "Well, two house guests," Lavinia amended as she reached around to pull the door further open.


	8. Family Reunion

The Doctor rose to his feet, a welcoming smile on his face that turned into a shocked stare as Tegan came into view. She in turn went absolutely white when she saw him. "What are you doing here?" she demanded shrilly, darting an accusative look at Sarah Jane's aunt.

Lavinia merely shrugged and reached around to close the door firmly behind the young Australian, who looked as if she were seriously considering bolting back out. "He's come for a visit, Tegan. I asked him to, because I believe there are some things you need to discuss. So I shall leave you the kitchen, and your privacy." She headed for the door to the parlor, pausing on the threshold to add, "Please try not to break too much of the crockery." Then she was gone, ignoring Tegan's look of panicked betrayal.

The Doctor tried a hesitant smile. "Hullo, Tegan." He looked down at the pram uncertainly. "Babysitting?"

Wrong question; he could sense it the moment the words left his mouth. Tegan stiffened, then moved to one side of the pram. "As a matter of fact, I'm not," she replied in carefully controlled tones. Her face was still white, and her hands were trembling slightly as she picked the baby up. "This is Lanie." Her eyes remained firmly focused on the small bundle as she added softly, almost inaudibly: "She's ours."

The Doctor shook his head, a nervous grin appearing briefly on his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you. Did you say she's...yours?"

"No," she said clearly. "I said she's _ours_." She waited defiantly for a reaction.

It wasn't long in coming. The smile froze in place, then disappeared completely as the stunned Time Lord sank down slowly into his seat. "Ours?" he repeated softly, disbelievingly.

Tegan nodded. "Ours," she confirmed as she took the opposite chair and began undoing Lanie's jacket and bonnet, using the time to try and collect her thoughts.

The Doctor was using that same time to try and come to grips with the information Tegan had just dropped in his lap. No wonder Lavinia was so anxious to get him here--! In all the time she and Sarah Jane had K-9 available to them, he realized now, they'd never used the robot dog to contact him. Especially not for something as trivial as a simple visit. He should have suspected something.

But, he reluctantly admitted as he stole a glance at the baby sitting comfortably on Tegan's lap, he never would have suspected this. So much for the vaunted Gallifreyan reproduction suppression disciplines. And so much for the incompatibility of human and Gallifreyan genes.

He looked over at the baby more fully, seeking--what? Familiarity? Shared features? It had been millenia since a Gallifreyan baby had been born outside of the Genetic Loom, but he did recall that even then they rarely resembled their parents. Something about the fluidity of regenerative genes, he remembered from a long-ago biology class. Of course, those lessons hadn't included information on half-Human Gallifreyan babies...all of which was beside the point. Whether the child regarding him out of bright blue eyes looked like him or not didn't alter the certainty that Tegan had in her voice when she identified the baby as his.

His baby. A frightening phrase. "Lanie?" he murmured inquisitively, concentrating on the smaller facts while his still-reeling mind grappled with the larger consequences. His baby.

Tegan nodded, still avoiding his eyes. "Elaina, actually," she said. "After my Gran. Elaina Jovanka. I picked family names because..." Her voice trailed off, and he instantly understood why.

"Because you're not ready to bring her home, is that it?" He tried to keep the hurt out of his voice. "Because of me, because of her father."

Tegan nodded miserably, his words hitting her like darts. No, like arrows, striking directly at the heart. She hated being the one to bring that tone to his voice. "I'm not sure I can ever bring her to meet them, not without finding some way to explain why she's...different." She lifted the baby to her shoulder, to hide her own pain. If it hurt him that she felt this way, it hurt herself just as much. Lavinia and Sarah Jane had both tried to convince her to at least introduce the baby to her grandfather, but she'd been too afraid of his reaction to risk it.

Lanie continued to regard the Doctor, her father, out of serious blue eyes. Her hair, he noted, was the same dark shade as Tegan's, standing out from her head in short, fuzzy tufts. "May I--that is, can I hold her?" he asked awkwardly. Suddenly, looking at her wasn't enough; he needed to hold her, to confirm her reality, and never mind the mess he and her mother had made of things. Lanie was the only thing that mattered right now. According to everything he'd been taught, she shouldn't exist. But here she was, a tiny miracle. Extraordinary.

Tegan nodded. Her expression remained carefully neutral as she stood up and walked over to his side. Lanie's hand waved aimlessly as the Doctor accepted her, not without a certain amount of trepidation.

"She was two months early," Tegan told him, watching the baby like a hawk. Or like a mother lion. She adjusted her daughter's head, fitting it more snugly into the crook of the Doctor's arm, her fingers lingering for a moment before he felt her pull abruptly away. "She weighed four and a half pounds and lived in an incubator for almost two weeks before Dr. Sullivan would let me take her home." Her voice broke at the memory, but she quickly regained her composure. "She has your ridiculous double-circulatory system. Other than the fact that she was early, there were no complications during the pregnancy or delivery, which surprised the hell out of Harry and K-9. And me." She looked down at the baby in his arms tenderly, reached forward with a gentle finger to touch the tiny head. "Sometimes I can feel her thoughts. I could throughout most of the pregnancy." She looked back at the Doctor with her normal faint air of belligerence, finally meeting his eyes.

She was frightened. _Merciful heavens, so am I!_ he realized. "Tegan," he said after a long, uncomfortable moment, "I really think we need to talk." Lanie squirmed in his arms, and he returned his attention to her, distracted by the motion but even more so by the tiny creature making it. He wasn't used to holding babies, especially not one this small; she felt incredibly fragile. And she was his daughter. Frightened? He was absolutely terrified. And, yet, at the same time, exhilarated.

Tegan nodded in slow agreement. "You're right, we've needed to talk for a long time." She held her arms out for the baby, biting her lip in a vain attempt to keep it from trembling. "But not right now. I--I need some time to get used to you being here." Her voice sank to a whisper. "Please. Just a little time."

The Doctor nodded, reluctantly handing over the baby. His shock was turning into tender amazement that he could be responsible--well, partly responsible--for creating the tiny being he was looking at. "Of course," he said softly. "I think I could use some time as well, to get used to the idea that I'm--that I'm a father." There. He'd said the word, and it tasted foreign in his mouth. He was a father. How long before he'd be used to it? He turned his mind away from that line of thought, bringing his attention back to Tegan. "I'm going to move the TARDIS here," he said. "It's a bit of a walk from the house. But I'll be right back."

Tegan nodded as she headed for the kitchen door. "I'm going up to my room," she replied, her voice as soft as his, but he caught the note of disbelief in it as well. She thought he was running.

"Tegan." He waited until she stopped and looked into his eyes; he wanted her to see the truth in them. "I shall be right back. I promise."

She nodded again, then backed out of the door, hugging Lanie to her chest protectively. Protecting whom? the Doctor wondered briefly as he headed for the back door. It was a question he couldn't answer. He left the door open in his haste, and the slight breeze coming in pushed the pram forward until it bumped noisily into the table, the abandoned blanket flapping aimlessly as it hung over the side.

It struck Lavinia as a particularly lonesome image, when she entered the empty kitchen a few minutes later. She hoped it wasn't an omen of things to come.


	9. Clearing Out

**oOo**

Tegan remained in her room the rest of the afternoon, not even coming out to greet Harry and Sarah Jane when they returned from their two-week vacation--a vacation that had unexpectedly turned into a honeymoon.

"Oh, we were there, in the Canaries, and it was so terribly romantic!" Sarah was saying breathlessly as she showed her aunt her wedding band. They had just come in the front door, tanned and glowing with more than mere good health. Sarah hugged her aunt enthusiastically while Harry stood in the background, shifting nervously from foot to foot, still looking slightly dazed at the whole thing. "All that moonlight and warm breezes and the ocean wherever you looked--"

Sarah seemed to realize Harry's discomfort at that point and let go of her aunt to laughingly pull her new husband forward. She tucked her arm through his and laid an affectionate cheek against his shoulder. "So this time, when Harry proposed, I thought, why not? All of a sudden, it seemed perfectly silly not to get married. After all, we're hardly children any more! So here we are!"

"I see my timing was better than I thought," came an unexpected voice from behind them. Sarah and Harry both turned in surprise. "Congratulations, both of you!"

"Hear, hear," Lavinia commented in dry agreement. "It's about time Sarah made up her mind to accept one of Harry's proposals!"

"Doctor!" Sarah Jane exclaimed, rushing up to hug the Time Lord enthusiastically. "Do you like it?" She raised her hand to show him her ring, then abruptly pulled it away as she remembered who else was in the house. "Did you just get here?" she asked cautiously, looking toward her aunt for guidance.

Lavinia shook her head gently. "It's all right, Sarah, or at least I think it is. He's just arrived this afternoon, but he's seen Tegan and Lanie." She heavily emphasized "seen."

Sarah Jane glanced up at the Doctor. "Ah," she murmured understandingly, then shook her head and smiled at him once again, although not quite as cheerfully this time. "Well then, I imagine you two have quite a lot to talk about. We'll get together later on. It's just as well that Harry and I took a hotel room for the rest of the week-end."

Harry flushed at the casual way in which his new wife made that revelation; he'd always been far more reserved than she. At least in public. "Yes, well, we'd better be going," he muttered as he held out his hand to the Doctor awkwardly. "Good to see you again, old chap; we'll have a nice long chat later, shall we?"

The Doctor only had time to nod his agreement before Sarah reclaimed her husband's nervous hand and began speaking once again. "Let's leave him to it, Harry, shall we? Come along, Aunty, we've left the motor running," she added, turning her attention to Lavinia. "We were just stopping by to tell you the good news. How about if we have dinner and take in a show at the cinema? Sound good?"

"Sounds marvelous," Lavinia replied, "but I'm afraid I'll have to pass." She raised an eyebrow at the expression of protest that came over Sarah's face. "Come now, Sarah Jane, do you really think I'm going to stay here? Credit me with some tact, if you please! I've already made arrangements to spend a few days with my friend Margaret. I was just waiting for you two to arrive to give me a lift. After all," she added with a touch of annoyance, "who do you think asked K-9 to contact the Doctor?" With those words, she swept regally into the front hall and picked up a suitcase that had been waiting discreetly behind the door. No one had noticed it, not even the Doctor.

Not, he thought wryly, that he would have noticed much of anything today; he still felt as if he were in a mild state of shock. Now Sarah was giving him another affectionate hug, this time to say good-bye; now Harry was shaking his hand once again, the nervous grin still plastered across his face; now Lavinia was patting him sympathetically on the shoulder. Then they were all headed out the door, to pile into the Harry's small car and disappear down the street.

Now they were gone. And he was alone in the front hall, staring thoughtfully up the staircase. He was alone, yes, but not completely alone. Upstairs, hiding the way she always did when she was upset, was Tegan.

And his daughter. He grasped the railing and began climbing the stairs.

Ready or not, it was time for them to talk.


	10. Clearing the Air

**oOo **

Tegan heard the determined knock on her bedroom door, and knew who it was instantly, without needing to ask. Lavinia had already made it quite clear that she was staying out of it from this point on, and Tegan had no doubts that Sarah Jane and Harry, whom she'd heard drive up and then leave, had also been firmly steered away.

No, there was no question as to who was knocking, more impatiently this time, at her door. The only question was whether she would answer, or just wait for him to go away.

"Tegan, are you going to come out, or shall I take the chance you're decent and simply barge in?" the Doctor's voice rang out, and Tegan knew that he wasn't going to allow her the option of ignoring him a little longer. He was determined to have it all out, whether she was ready or not.

Tegan closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again as she took a deep breath and opened the door. The painful truth of the matter was that she might never feel ready for this.

Or for him.

He was standing, hands in pockets, gazing down at his feet. When he raised his eyes to meet hers, she had to physically restrain herself from closing the door on him. Those eyes; damn him, why did he have to have such beautiful eyes? "Lanie's sleeping." It was the truth, but also an evasion; it wasn't even close to what she really wanted to say to him.

The Doctor craned his head to look over her shoulder, taking in the antique cradle standing next to the bed. He couldn't see the baby, just the blankets and a floppy stuffed animal-a bear, perhaps, or a rabbit-draped over one side. "We don't want to wake her," he said reluctantly, his eyes glued to the domestic scene before him. "So I suppose..."

"I suppose we'd best go downstairs," Tegan finished for him. That caught his attention; he returned his gaze to her, surprise on every feature. Surprise that she hadn't seized the opportunity to run away again. It was what she wanted to do, but she refused to give in to her fears. Not any more. She turned back into the room briefly, switching on the monitor, a small device that appeared a bit advanced for the mid-1980s and which he suspected of being a baby gift from someone with UNIT connections. How else to explain the fact that it had video capabilities?

"The other end's in the kitchen," she said, brushing past him quickly and heading down the stairs, interrupting his distracted thoughts. He hesitated, then stepped softly into the bedroom, peering quietly down at his sleeping daughter. She shifted slightly, as if feeling the weight of his gaze, and he backed out as quietly as he'd entered. Of course, if she'd managed to sleep through him shouting and pounding on the door not once but twice, then obviously she could sleep through anything. He felt an absurd surge of pride at the thought, as if a knack for sleeping heavily was some sort of accomplishment, but refused to tamp it down. If he wanted to feel pride for his daughter, he damn well would.

It was in that mood that he followed Tegan, closing the door behind him.

The Doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably as they each took a chair on opposite sides of the small kitchen table, eyeing each other warily the whole time. "Well. Here we are." For someone so determined to talk, he found himself at a sudden loss for words.

Tegan nodded. "Yes, here we are." They fell silent once again, avoiding each other's gaze until the Doctor forced himself to look at her.

She didn't look any different than when she'd left him. Oh, the clothes were a bit more conservative, but her hair was essentially the same length, her figure perhaps a bit more rounded, especially in the obvious places, but she'd certainly lost any baby weight she'd gained, at least as far as he could tell. He supposed he didn't look any different, either, although he certainly felt different.

She sat there, hunched forward, eyes glancing sideways toward the monitor tucked discreetly between two earthenware pitchers on Lavinia's massive mahogany sideboard. As if hoping her daughter would begin to cry and give her an excuse to leave. Sensing the Doctor's scrutiny, or perhaps coming to the decision on her own, she straightened, thrust her chin out, and turned to look at him, full on, her eyes full of challenge. "You wanted to talk. All right then, what do you want me to say?"

"This isn't about what I want or don't want you to say, Tegan," the Doctor replied quietly. "It's about what you want to tell me." She just looked at him, and he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head in exasperation. "Very well then, answer me this: Was the real reason you left because of the baby? Because quite frankly if it was, I think you were being unfair."

"Unfair to who, you?" Tegan shot back. Her hands, which had been restlessly fidgeting, went very still. "Maybe it was," she agreed. "But you didn't try to stop me." Hurt and anger warred for dominance in her voice, in her expression, in her very posture, and the Doctor had no idea which would win out. Especially when he was feeling the same potent mixture of emotions.

"I was afraid to," he admitted. Tegan snorted disbelievingly. "No, I was," he protested. "I was afraid you wouldn't listen. I never really believed you, you know, saying it wasn't fun anymore." His gaze slipped toward the monitor she had just been focused on, and he forced himself to return his attention fully to the woman sitting at the opposite end of the worn oak table. "Not really. I thought there had to be more to it than that. I just assumed that you needed to make a clean break of it, to get away from-well, from me."

"You thought I was running away from you?" Her voice was cautious, but still edged with the familiar belligerence that had always been one of her best weapons of distraction.

He nodded. "Weren't you?" Her silence spoke volumes, and he gave a helpless shrug. He wanted to hear her side of things, and so far he was doing all the talking. So much for planning ahead... "You were. So I let you. I thought it was what you wanted, and I accepted what you told me as truth because it was easier than trying to get at the real reasons. Or at least, what I thought were the real reasons. I was afraid to press you, because there were things I thought you might say that I didn't want to hear." He smiled briefly, painfully. "I was frightened." The smile faded. "As frightened as I imagine you were, even if it was for a different reason. And that's a terribly difficult thing for me to admit."

"I was terrified." Tegan felt her foot begin to tap nervously against the wooden floorboards; it took an effort of will to stop the movement. "I couldn't even begin to figure out how I felt about it, let alone how you would feel. I mean, come on; how many pregnant women go gadding about the universe in a time machine? So I left before you could make me."

"Surely you didn't think I'd...turn you out?" The Doctor's voice was skeptical. "This is hardly a Victorian melodrama," he added with a touch of sarcasm as remembered pain blended with current pain. He was a father, and she hadn't even let him know. Anger was beginning to get the upper hand, and he fought to control his temper. Her inability to do so was something he'd chided her for more than once in the past.

"You did once before," Tegan snapped back, then bit her lip in annoyance. She'd promised herself that she'd keep her head. Letting her emotions get the better of her had done nothing but get her into trouble all her life. "Well you did," she insisted, glaring at the frown of protest she saw creasing his forehead. "You left me at Heathrow." To hell with holding things in. If now wasn't the time to air dirty linen, it never would be.

"You can hardly call that being turned out," the Doctor protested. He was unable to keep the irritation out of his voice, in spite of his intentions to keep his calm. "You kept telling me you wanted to go home, so when the TARDIS actually managed to land at Heathrow, I took you at your word. I sent you home."

Tegan's glare intensified. "I didn't really mean it." _And you should have known_, her tone implied.

"And how, exactly, was I supposed to know?" the Doctor asked with exaggerated patience. He was definitely not used to this kind of... foolishness.

Tegan's glare turned withering. "You're the Time Lord, the one with all the experience in the ways of the bloody universe, didn't you ever take the time to try and figure out women?"

"Gallifreyan women tend to be more logical and a helluva lot less emotional." The Doctor was glaring right back at her. He stood abruptly, no longer able to keep his seat. A part of him was watching in astonishment, amazed that he could muster this much outrage over something so commonplace as a domestic dispute. "They don't play emotional games, and they damn well say what they mean! If a Gallifreyan woman were in the same situation, she would have told me immediately so we could work things out together!"

He was yelling. He was actually yelling at her. She, too came to her feet, shoving her chair back and slamming her hands on the table. If she'd paled, or trembled, or even cried, he would have been able to rein in his temper. But she was Tegan, and if she'd been avoiding this conversation before, she certainly wasn't backing down now. "If you weren't so damned distant and patronizing, then maybe I would have been able to tell you about it! It isn't as if we planned it, as if we planned anything at all!" she blazed. "You never even told me if I meant anything to you!"

There it was, out in the open at last. "Not once, not even when we were sleeping together," she continued in a quieter voice. "For all I knew, I was just a warm body, a convenience. Hell, that could have been what you were thinking I felt. Because. We. Never. Talked." She sat, suddenly, as if drained by her outburst, her response to his outburst, and he slowly copied her, returning not to his own seat but to the one closest to her. The physical distance was saying something, something he didn't want it to.

He reached out and took her hand in his. He felt her start to pull away, then suddenly she gripped his fingers as if her life depended on it. "No, we didn't," he agreed softly. He'd asked, and she'd answered. In spades. And if he felt a part of himself wincing with something that felt suspiciously like shame at her words, well, then, he would just have to live with that feeling. If Tegan was laying blame, she was laying it fairly, on both their shoulders. He might not have been playing games, not intentionally, but he hadn't been completely open with her, either.

"I knew you didn't really turn me out, that it was my own fault," she continued after a painful silence. "In a way, I did want to go, because I was scared then, too. Scared of how I felt, scared of how you felt, or of how you didn't feel...Too scared to admit it to anyone, even myself." Her voice turned cold. "And then the Master played that nasty trick on us with his fake Adric. He opened a lot of wounds with that little stunt, brought up a lot of pain I thought I'd got over. I was so angry and hurt, I took it out on you, started screaming about going home again. So that's where you sent me; I suppose you thought it was for the best." She stopped once again, an unreadable expression on her face. "I tried to get back to my normal life, forget the TARDIS, make a go of being an air hostess. What a laugh that was." A touch of bitterness entered her voice. "I got the sack; they said my mind clearly wasn't on my work."

Just when the Doctor began to wonder if she'd finished, she started speaking again. "Then my cousin Cohn got mixed up in that nastiness with Omega, and suddenly you were back in my life again. So I just invited myself back to the TARDIS." Another long pause. "This time, I was determined to do it right, not get mixed up with you again-not as anything but a friend. I still didn't know how I felt about you, or you about me. So I told myself I just wanted to see Nyssa again, explore a little more of the universe. And I missed the excitement," she confessed. "It gets in your blood, y'know?"

The Doctor nodded. He understood that feeling quite well. Quite well, indeed.

Tegan continued: "So I kept you at arm's length, didn't hardly let you near enough to even be a friend, let alone for anything more. I guess I had myself convinced it was just comfort to you, that all you'd needed was a shoulder to cry on after Adric died, and that we'd both gotten carried away. And it seemed to me you were thinking the same sort of thing, since you'd been so willing to let me go in the first place." She shrugged. "But it wasn't working, at least not for me. I didn't want to just stay friends. And I then I began to wonder if you were feeling the same way."

"I won't deny it," the Doctor interjected, stroking her hand absently. The anger he'd been feeling had dwindled to something more manageable, something he was better able to control. The fact that they'd both made mistakes, and that Tegan was so willing to admit it, helped a great deal. But although their initial spate of bickering was past them, he knew there was bound to be more before they'd wangled things out between them. "Tegan, I've always cared about you a great deal. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear to you sooner, else all this might have been avoided."

Tegan nodded, accepting the truth of his words. "But you didn't," she said simply. "And neither did I. I never told you how I felt. So there we were, walking on eggs around each other." She smiled unexpectedly, a wry, bittersweet smile. "Poor Nyssa! It must have been awful for her don't you think? The tension was so thick-! She ended up on pins and needles too, and I don't think she ever really knew what was going on. At least, she never let on to me if she did. I let her think I was being cool because I felt guilty about leaving and then just inviting myself back."

"It was why she left." There was regret in the Doctor's voice. "Nyssa was another casualty of our lack of communication. If Turlough had been less self-centered, he might have abandoned us as well."

"Did he? Leave?" Tegan glanced around involuntarily, as if Turlough might pop up from behind the refrigerator.

"Yes, he went home," the Doctor assured her. "Then I picked up another stray, only when I received Lavinia's call, I dropped her back home, very much against her will." Peri had been quite vociferous in her demands to stay with him, but he'd been adamant. Where the same tactic would have worked if it were Tegan making the demands, Peri didn't even come close to getting under his skin the way the woman sitting next to him always had. Still did, obviously.

"Unless there were something in it for him, Turlough wouldn't notice the end of bloody universe," Tegan muttered. Before the Doctor could spring to the boy's defense, however, she relented. "I'm glad he made it home, that he's safe."

"We should both be glad he didn't notice what we were getting up to," was the Doctor's dry comment. He was grateful for that, Turlough's lack of comprehension as to the rather complicated nature of the Doctor's relationship with Tegan. The boy wasn't above a spot of blackmail, not if the Doctor read him correctly, and Tegan would have quite happily destroyed him if he tried any such thing with either of them.

Tegan almost smiled. "It was different, after I got back, after the Mara. The nightmares..." The sketch of a smile faded as she shook her head. "I never woke Nyssa with them, no screaming aloud or thrashing about, but they were just about the worst thing that had ever happened to me. They made me more reckless, I suppose, than I might have been otherwise."

"Maybe, but that doesn't explain my part. I never turned you away," he reminded her. "And not just because I thought you were seeking comfort. Oh, I told myself it was because you needed me, but there was more to it than that. And perhaps if I'd told you that," he added bitterly, "I wouldn't be meeting my daughter when she was, what? Nearly five months old?"

He felt Tegan's hand jerk beneath his before she relaxed once again in his hold. Not entirely, but she wasn't pulling away, and he felt absurdly reassured by that. "Nearly," she whispered. Her lips were trembling, and he reached up with one thumb to gently wipe away the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes. "It's just as much my fault. When I realized I was pregnant, when I finally admitted it wasn't just nerves or something simple like that, what did I do? I ran away, without talking to you. Without telling you why."

Before he could say anything, she abruptly pulled her hand free of his and rose to her feet, moving to stand near the sink. Staring out the window. "I was afraid of other things besides you, you know, besides my feelings. Things like Daleks and Cybermen. Real, physical dangers. What kind of a place is a TARDIS to raise a child?"

"I did it once," he pointed out, rising to join her in front of the window. The TARDIS was smack in the middle of Lavinia's small yard, and it was that to which Tegan's gaze had been drawn. "Susan grew up just fine. Although," he was forced to admit, "I did tend to steer clear of trouble spots until she was old enough to handle them."

"Yes, well, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the time," Tegan reminded him. His hand had found hers again, and she clasped it gently. "I didn't really mean 'fun' when I left; what I should have said was 'safe'. I kept thinking about Adric, and how that could happen to anyone, how it could have been me. I had some nasty, selfish reasons for leaving, Doctor, I admit it. But I was thinking about Lanie, too, driving myself half-mad worrying about everything that could happen. I had to get away; I felt like I needed a safe place to think, to figure things out."

"I wanted to come after you," the Doctor said. "I almost did. But I stopped myself. You sounded as if you meant it, and I felt compelled to honor what I thought you wanted."

"I came back." She could feel the surprise in his gaze and smiled. "I actually changed my mind about two seconds after I left, but it was too late. You were gone."

"And now?" The question was quietly asked.

Tegan took a moment to collect her thoughts before answering. "Now I've had plenty of time to think," she said slowly. "In the end, I still believe leaving was the right thing to do for myself. Maybe not the right thing for you, or for us," she added her voice low and passionate now with remembered pain, "but the right thing for me. It's kept me sane, staying here; at least I know Lanie and I are safe. Well, safer," she corrected herself. "Not that anyplace is really safe these days, but South Croydon is a little closer to safe than the TARDIS. Since I've been here," she added, "I've been trying to get used to the idea that I'd never see you again. But here you are." She stopped abruptly, unsure of what to say next.

"Yes, here I am," the Doctor agreed. Her explanation, confused and convoluted though it was, made perfect sense to him. Or at least, as much sense as anything in his life. "Now what are we going to do?" He locked his gaze with hers. "Do you want me to stay away? Or stay here?"

"Hell's teeth, Doctor, I don't know what I want!" Tegan exclaimed, slapping her hand down on the edge of the sink. She stared at him with an expression that was equal parts frustration, exasperation and amusement. "Didn't I just get done saying that?"

"Yes, I suppose you did," the Doctor replied. Before he could say anything else, Tegan turned to face him, tilting her head back just a little so she could look directly into his eyes. He gazed up at her questioningly.

"Do you love me?" The unexpectedness of the question jolted him, but he realized he should have seen it coming. She'd all but admitted that was how she felt about him; fair was fair.

The Doctor was quiet for a long time, long enough for Tegan to break her gaze and walk back over to the table, waiting in silence to see how-and if-he would answer her question.

The Time Lord fidgeted uncomfortably as he considered that question. "I don't know," he finally replied. "I'm not trying to avoid an answer, Tegan; that's the simple truth. I honestly don't know. It's not the sort of emotion that comes easily to a Time Lord. We spend a great deal of our energy trying to remain dispassionate, so when someone comes along who can rattle that equilibrium, it takes us by surprise, disorients us. Me," he corrected himself. "I can only speak for myself."

"So you've never been in love?" Tegan looked as if she were talking to the table, head lowered and arms crossed. He moved again, this time to stand directly behind her, gently laying his hands on her shoulders. They were as tense as they looked.

"No," he replied. "Never. I've never allowed myself to become that attached to anyone, beyond the bounds of friendship and camaraderie. Until I met you," he added quietly. "And I am rather attached to you. I've missed you, busied myself in this and that to cover up how much I missed you. I even missed the way you always argue with me." He felt her shoulders shake with silent laughter at that admission, and felt some of his own tension ease. "I'm sorry I can't answer your question any better than that."

"Well, then I guess we'll just have to see what the future holds," Tegan replied. "I do love you, you know. In case you were wondering. I've felt it before, but never like this. And that frightened me more than anything else. Because I never believed you could possibly love me back."

She twisted her head round to face him, and the sight of her so vulnerable, so open, stole the breath from his lungs, nearly stopped his hearts as he realized what this conversation had cost her. Without thinking, without analyzing, he leaned down and kissed her, cupping her face in his hands, feeling her body turn to face him, feeling her lips soft and warm beneath his.

When they broke apart, Tegan was flushed and confused. "Does this mean you're going to stay?" she whispered. "Or is this good-bye?"

"It is not good-bye." In spite of all the uncertainties they still faced, that was one thing he was quite sure of. He refused to relinquish his gentle hold on her face, and the table behind her prevented her from moving away even if she'd wanted to. "I came here to be reunited with old friends, no emergencies and no other obligations standing in my way. Now that I've found you and Lanie, I've no intention of doing anything other than getting to know you better. Both of you."

Tegan beamed and flung her arms around his neck for a hug which he enthusiastically returned. "Splendid!" She pulled back, but only to reach for his hand and drag him toward the front parlor. "There's so much we need to ask you, Harry and I, questions about Lanie we were afraid we'd never have the answers to."

The Doctor tugged her to a stop. "Questions I may not have the answers to, either," he warned her. "Remember, Lanie's a hybrid. What I know about Gallifreyan physiology may not entirely apply."

"I know, Harry said the same thing," Tegan replied airily. "But we've got the TARDIS now, so even if there are differences, at least you can scan her or something, make sure everything's really OK." She bit her lip, and the Doctor narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "We haven't gone to UNIT," she confessed. "I didn't want Lanie to become a lab rat for the scientists there. I was afraid they'd take her away from me, so we've only had access to ordinary medical equipment."

"We'll take her on the TARDIS for a full look-over whenever you want," the Doctor assured her.

Tegan's smile was dazzling. "Super." She glanced around. "Lanie's sleeping, the house is empty, and I believe there's a bottle of wine or two about. Shall we work on getting reacquainted?" Her smile turned wicked, and she pulled him down for a kiss that left him even more breathless than the one they'd just shared.

"Tegan, are you sure this is what you want?" he murmured as she pressed her body against his. His hands moved of their own accord to circle her waist. "This is what got us into trouble the last time..."

"There's a box of condoms in Sarah Jane's room," Tegan mumbled against his lips, her hands busily tugging on his jacket. Trying to remove it. "I've gone on the pill as well and I promise not to run away this time." She stopped what she was doing, pulling back to look him squarely in the eyes. "I mean it. I won't if you won't." There it was, the challenging young woman he was used to. And yet, she wasn't the same, not exactly, and he liked what he saw. And not just because she was in the process of removing her own clothing as well as his own.

"No one leaves," he agreed, allowing his jacket to drop to the floor. He nuzzled her gently, nibbling the side of her neck while she went to work on his jumper.

His last coherent thought was one of admiration for the confident woman Tegan had become. She had somehow found time, in the past year, between giving birth and learning how to be a mother, to grow up a little more herself. In spite of the fact that she'd tried hiding and avoiding the issue at first, in spite of the fact that he could still see the defiant, petulant and somewhat reckless child she had been only a few short months ago, he found himself impressed with the more responsible and mature woman in his arms. Motherhood, he decided, most certainly agreed with Tegan Jovanka.

And it certainly hadn't slowed her down any. She kissed him again, velvety lips against his, the tip of her tongue darting out as if to taste him, her hands sliding down his chest and fumbling with his belt...With a groan, he swept her up into his arms and headed for the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. "Where did you say those condoms were?"

Tegan's delighted laughter echoed through the house, but Lanie slept on. She gave her parents exactly three uninterrupted hours before reminding them of her presence.

It was the best gift they could have received.

**Epilogue**

The White Guardian frowned. The message had somehow got through, which it most emphatically was not supposed to do. And the Time Lord was now on Earth, where he didn't belong. Not now, anyway. He was throwing things off schedule; the repercussions could be felt across the cosmos.

The White Guardian came to the reluctant conclusion that he would have to do something about this. Someone was interfering with the way things were supposed to go, and he would have to intercede as well, something he hated to do. Meddling directly with the ephemeral beings it was his duty to watch over and guide went against the grain, to borrow an Earth expression, but it was definitely called for in this situation. Much as he preferred to work through intermediaries, he was once again faced with a situation that required immediate action on his own part.

With a mental sigh of resignation, the White Guardian prepared to speak to the Doctor.

Who wasn't going to like the conversation one bit.

The End

(For Now)

_A/N: Oh, did I forget to mention this was the first of at least two stories? (Chuckles evilly) I promise to post the second part soon, after I finish another sequel (to my story "End of the Circle"). Patience, and all will be revealed! Thanks for sticking with me, and remember to post your reviews if you are so inclined!_


End file.
